The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) will encompass the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), the Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) and the future European GALILEO System as well as other regional satellite radio navigation systems and space borne and ground-based augmentation systems. Being fully operational, the GPS has a constellation of twenty four satellites that are in six different orbit plans around the earth. A navigation solution is obtained through measuring propagation delay times of the radio signals broadcast by the orbiting satellites to a GPS receiver. Normally, a receiver must acquire and track signals from at least four satellites in order to solve for the variables of longitude, latitude, altitude, and time that are needed to precisely determine location. The received GPS signals must attain a minimum power level to ensure a GPS solution with acceptable accuracy, which is routinely met when there is a clear line-of-sight (LOS) view from the receiver antenna to GPS satellites above the horizon.
However, when the line-of-sight view between the receiver and a satellite is obstructed (e.g., due to foliage, mountains, buildings, or other structures) the GPS signal strength may be severely attenuated, leading to position fix with poor accuracy and even breakdown of tracking loops inside a regular receiver. It is therefore desired to improve GPS receiver sensitivity to operate on GPS signals of very low power level (also referred to as weak signals) to satisfy the requirements of location-based mobile e-commerce and emergency call location (E911).
More details about GPS operations under normal signal conditions can be found in the books entitled, Global Positioning System: Theory and Applications (Vols. I and II), edited by B. W. Parkinson and J. J. Spilker Jr., AIAA, 1996; Understanding GPS: Principles and Applications (2nd Ed.), edited by E. D. Kaplan and C. J. Hegarty, Artech House Publishers, 2006; Fundamentals of Global Positioning System Receivers—A Software Approach (2nd Ed.), by J. B. Y. Tsui, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005; and Global Positioning System, Signals, Measurements, and Performance (2nd Ed.) by P. Misra and P. Enge, Ganga-Jamuna Press, 2006. The present invention sets forth a GPS receiver and associated methods that can operate on weak signals.
To extract the time and frequency parameters of received GPS signals for position fixing, a GPS receiver first detects the presence of such signals (often referred to as the acquisition stage) and then follows the acquired signals subject to changes in time and frequency as the satellites move across the sky (referred to as the tracking stage). During the first stage, normal signal acquisition is accomplished by a search in discrete steps over a grid covering the time and frequency uncertainty zone for a GPS satellite signal. Since the ID number of this satellite is not known either, a search is also conducted among the twenty-four active GPS satellites in orbit. Due to the discrete nature of the acquisition search, it can only provide coarse estimates of signal parameters as the starting point to close a refined “search” loop in the tracking stage.
To enable weak GPS signal acquisition, one known technique at the receiver end is to extend the signal integration time. Coherent integration is more gainful than non-coherent integration. However, when the coherent integration interval extends beyond, e.g., 20 milliseconds, which is the duration of one data bit for GPS C/A-codes, the sign reversal of navigation data bits becomes destructive if it occurs in the middle of a long coherent integration. As a result, an additional signal parameter, namely, the data bit transition (also called data bit edge interchangeable in this specification), has to be searched in addition to the two usual parameters, code phase (time) and carrier frequency, and the ID number of GPS satellites. This in fact constitutes a four dimensional search.
The number of satellites to be searched for is fixed and so is the number of code phases. However, the number of search steps for frequency increases linearly with the coherent integration interval whereas the locations of data bit transition increases exponentially with the coherent integration interval. A brute force approach considering all possible combinations is undesired because it would require excess computation time, storage memory, and power consumption. A practical approach to acquiring weak GPS signals is the assisted GPS (AGPS). The AGPS approach relies upon a wireless data link (or other means) to distribute, in real time, such information as time, frequency, navigation data bits, satellite ephemeredes, and approximate position as well as differential corrections to special GPS receivers equipped with a network modem so as to reduce the uncertainty search space, to help lock onto signals, and to assist navigation solution. This approach, however, comes with a heavy price associated with installing and maintaining the wireless aiding infrastructure and services required to provide the coverage.
In contrast, a standalone high-sensitivity receiver has many practical and economical advantages over assisted GPS receivers. One standalone high-sensitivity receiver and associated method named Block-Accumulating Coherent Integration over Extended Interval (BACIX) has been disclosed in the co-pending patent application entitled “Method and Device for Acquiring Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Signals of Very Low Power Level,” Application Ser. No. 11/173,894, filed Jul. 1, 2005, of which the present invention is a continuation-in-part and which is hereby incorporated into this specification by reference. Test results with real GPS data are disclosed in the paper entitled “Block-Accumulating Coherent Integration over Extended Interval (BACOX) for Weak GPS Signal Acquisition,” presented by the first co-inventor at the 19th International Technical Meeting of the Institute of Navigation Satellite Division in September 2006 in Fort Worth, Tex., which is hereby incorporated into this specification by reference.
It is conceivable to conduct signal tracking using the same techniques as used in acquisition. However, such an approach is not cost-effective. Acquisition is based on discrete search according to a predefined sequence, providing coarse estimates of signal parameters. If used for tracking with fixed grid points in an open loop manner, it becomes inefficient in computation without incorporating any information that has been gathered about the signal during the acquisition and tracking process and, more importantly, its performance is relatively poor simply because of a rather large spacing between search steps.
After being handed over from the acquisition stage, a closed-loop tracking channel maintains lock onto a signal of interest. By taking advantage of the latest estimates of the underlying signal, a tracking loop can follow small variations in the signal while using a narrow bandwidth to average out noise. Once locked, the signal parameters are used to generate GPS observables that in turn are used to obtain a GPS position and time solution. Such a tracking channel is also built in with the ability to handle large instantaneous disruption of signals for graceful degradation of performance via a coasting-reacquisition-tracking process.
The general architecture of a conventional tracking loop remains valid for weak signal tracking. However, its actual implementation must deal with such problems as unknown data bit transitions occurred within a long integration interval that is extended in order to boost the signal power. In addition, the residual frequency error either due to the relative motion between a GPS satellite and the receiver and/or to the receiver's clock drifts becomes critical when the length of coherent integration interval is significant. There are, consequently, outstanding problems with known techniques when applied to weak GPS signal tracking in a standalone high-sensitivity receiver.
A need therefore exists for maintaining tracking of weak GPS signals once handed over from acquisition. This need is met by the present invention as described and claimed below.